The Process of Interpretation: The Antiquity of the Namurlanjanyngku and Post-Contact History in Yanyuwa Country, Northern Australia

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Technique and Interpretation in the Archaeology of Rock Art" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The search for meaning in rock art has been the focus of scholarly attention and debate for decades. A common feature that unites many of these studies is what the enquiry produces – for example, what a motif represents. However, studies focussing on the processes by which meaning is generated are, comparatively speaking, fewer in number. In this paper, we explore how Yanyuwa Traditional Owners from northern Australia engage with meaning and interpretation of radiocarbon dates for motifs linked to well-known spiritual beings. Our case study is a large sandstone rockshelter on the west coast of Vanderlin Island called Kammandaringabaya. Here, hand prints and hand stencils cover the shelter walls and roof, and are said by Yanyuwa to be the work of the namurlanjanyngku. In 2017, we began a collaborative dating project aimed at identifying the antiquity of the namurlanjanyngku. While Yanyuwa understandings of the namurlanjanyngku and their rock art are embedded in narratives concerning events from the Dreaming, Yanyuwa interpretations of the relatively recent radiocarbon dates (post-European arrival) add another layer of meaning to the site that continues to not only reinforce the complex relational structure the motifs are embedded within but also engagement with Yanyuwa post-contact history.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Technique and Interpretation in the Archaeology of Rock Art   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23159